Detroit Tigers Miguel Cabrera wins AL MVP award

FILE - This Oct. 3, 2012 file photo shows Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera waving to the crowd after being replaced during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. He was named the American League Most Valuable Player Thursday by the Baseball Writersí Association of America.

There is a predestined trek for truly great ballplayers like Miguel Cabrera.

They emerge very young to have immediate and dramatic impact. As a rookie in 2003, Cabrera played a prominent role as the then-Florida Marlins won a World Series championship.

Then, they stock-pile statistics. Cabrera has driven in 105 or more runs nine straight seasons. He has hit 30 or more home runs in eight of those nine seasons. The one season he didn’t, he hit .339 with 114 RBI. He had 26 home runs. His career OPS (on base plus slugging percentage) is the 20th best of all time.

Cabrera’s average 162-game season is .318 batting average, 34 home runs and 120 RBI. Just a couple years into his prime, his ticket is already being stamped for the Hall of Fame.

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It was just a matter of time until he won an MVP Award. The one he was awarded Thursday could be the first of many to come.

Cabrera led the American League in batting average (.330), home runs (44) and RBI (139). The Tigers reached the playoffs.

The debate of whether Cabrera should have won the MVP Award should have been over right there.

The triple crown is an amazing feat. There is a reason it has happened so few times, and not since 1967. The list of players to win the triple crown — Carl Yastrzemski, Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, etc — reads like a roll call for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Trout had an exceptional season and is an extraordinary talent. It has not been since Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. surfaced more than two decades ago that we’ve seen a player quite as gifted. He does provide a speed element Cabrera doesn’t. He is a much better fielder at a more premier position, too.

The “old way of looking at baseball” vs. the “new way of looking at baseball” debate couldn’t be more ridiculous, however. WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is a non-standardized number that varies from source to source.

There are some who act as if Sabermetrics, a set of statistics, is new. Bill James started writing his books decades ago. It’s just more numbers about the same old game. I am not one for dismissing Sabermetrics. It has added greatly to my enjoyment of the sport, and it does provide more evaluation methods, which is good.

But its proponents are often over-the-top.

It should still be noted baseball is played in real time in open space by athletes of enormous skill that involve many factors that cannot be crunched into perfect statistical categories.

Cabrera, for example, moved from first base to third to make room for Prince Fielder. The last time Cabrera played third base, he was awful. This season, he performed reasonablly well at the spot, and it triggered a lineup change that allowed the Tigers to reach the postseason.

There also isthe matter of the timing of his hits. There is no comparison in regard to performance between Cabrera and Trout in August and September during a tight playoff race. Cabrera’s statistics were far superior when it mattered. It’s not a trivial point the Tigers made the playoffs, and the Angels did not.

Cabrera put the Tigers on his back and carried them to the playoffs, while Trout faded.

In the end, the voting was not close, and it does point to how wellsituated the Tigers are for the coming season.

Victor Martinez will be back. They have signed Torii Hunter as a free agent. Justin Verlander won the AL MVP last season, and narrowly missed winning his second straight AL Cy Young Award this week.

There isn’t a better hitter than Cabrera, and there likely won’t be for years to come.

With all due respect to Mike Trout and his Sabermetrics buddies, Cabrera’s value can’t be emphasized enough.

Pat Caputo is a senior sports reporter and a columnist for Journal Register Newspapers. Contact him at pat.caputo@oakpress.com and read his blog at theoaklandpress.com. You can follow him on Twitter at patcaputo98